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Comment by lurking_swe | Hacker News Reader

You can never please everyone. Not sure if you realize, it’s trivial to get a new battery replaced once every 3 or 4 years. Apple store can do it, as well 3rd party repair shops in most cities. Takes 15-45 minutes, depends how busy the shop is.

Perhaps you’re more annoyed about right to repair in general? That’s a different story…

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You forgot the time to get to the shop, and the alternative of <1 min which puts your 45min to shame

that’s fair.

There are some actual benefits though, even if you choose to ignore them. The water resistance rating is much higher compared to phones with a battery cover, a modern iphone will have zero problems being accidentally dropped in the deep end of a pool, or in a lake.

Everything is a trade off, don’t forget that. You don’t like this trade off, which i completely understand. Not everyone cares about water resistance…

If a replaceable battery is a must for you, i’d buy an android with a battery cover. Gotta choose what’s right for you.

> modern iphone will have zero problems being accidentally dropped in the deep end of a pool, or in a lake.

So which benefit can you make up to explain why older iphone models with low water resistance also didn't have replaceable batteries?

Also it's not really true for the modern phones either since there are rare models with high ip68 water resistance and user replaceable batteries

So it's not that I ignore the benefit, I deny its explanatory power and doubt its size

I just went through that process at an Apple Store less than 50 miles from Apple HQ. It took 4 and a half hours from my appointment time to having my repaired phone back. (And of course I couldn’t get work done because I didn’t have my phone, and I couldn’t warn the people who were expecting me of my delay, because I didn’t have my phone.) That’s completely unacceptable when it should only take 5-10 seconds.

Edit: To head off any doubt, no my phone was not damaged, and the repair went smoothly. They were having an inventory tracking system outage with absolutely zero fallback/continuity plan and absolutely refused to give me my phone back, repaired or not.

So your scenario sounds like an exception to the rule.

Even in the best case scenario is objectively worse in every way than a 10s at-home battery swap. Especially for the vast majority of human beings that don’t live within a reasonable distance of an Apple Store. Keep in mind that most older phones end up on secondary markets in less wealthy countries. They could live for years there except for the failed batteries.

And those countries have stores every corner that will replace it. I live in one.

The latest iPhones require the battery to be cryptographically paired to the phone and can only be done by Apple or a few approved vendors. You can’t just take them to a normal repair shop.

It is not as trivial in Sweden. You have to book an appointment first available beeing 2 weeks or months away in a shady shop with bad google reviews.

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